The AirSea Battle concept for countering China’s military rise is expensive and unhelpful. And could even spark a nuclear conflict.
The officer, a senior leader in US Pacific Command, looked down, fumbled with his papers and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It was 2009, and he was answering a question about whether, in a Taiwan Straits crisis similar to that which occurred in the mid-1990s, the United States could confidently respond by again deploying aircraft carrier groups around Taiwan. ‘No,’ he conceded after a long pause, ‘and it’s the thing that really keeps me up at night.’ It was a telling response.
Indeed, while China’s new aircraft carrier grabs all the attention, the People’s Liberation Army’s maritime denial strategy is quietly maturing, leaving the United States facing some difficult choices. As submarines and precision-guided strike capabilities accumulate in Chinese arsenals – and are woven into war plans – the US capacity for sea-control and power projection in the Western Pacific, long taken for granted, is steadily being eroded. As a consequence, new doubts are emerging about the credibility of certain US strategic assurances, particularly in relation to Taiwan, which other US allies use as a barometer of Washington’s regional commitment. In this regard, China’s denial strategy is undermining the military, and hence political, foundations of US primacy.
This situation hasn’t arisen overnight. The most pronounced shifts in the military balance have, however, occurred while the United States has been preoccupied elsewhere – and in the context of a longstanding but unrealistic expectation on Washington’s part that China would be a different sort of great power, one that eschews power politics, like Japan, in favour of a more deferential posture.
Today, all aspects of that situation are changing. The advent of certain high-profile Chinese capabilities, together with Beijing’s newly uncompromising demeanour, suggests that China is under no illusions about the means to success in international politics, and is cut from the same cloth as its great power predecessors. It also means Beijing can no longer maintain such a low-profile in US strategic headlights.
With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq drawing to a close, US attention is gradually refocusing on Asia. As it does, some strategists have begun re-evaluating the centrality of power projection in US strategy. In particular, they are asking: what does it mean for the United States and its allies to lose military primacy in the Western Pacific? Does US credibility depend on the ability to dominate China’s maritime periphery? And what are the implications of a military no-go zone in the Western Pacific?
These are questions that Washington will, in time, be forced to answer. In the meantime, the US Navy and Air Force have begun preparing AirSea Battle contingencies, a war-fighting doctrine aimed at countering China’s denial strategy. By denying China’s capacity for anti-access, the United States intends to preserve its options for sea-control and power projection, reinforcing its primacy and role as the region’s guarantor of free navigation. This decision, in turn, reflects a deeper, more quixotic judgement that such an objective is both vital to the United States and attainable at a level of cost and risk commensurate with US interests in the region.
On both counts, though, there are reasons to be sceptical. First, the cost of AirSea Battle is likely to be prohibitive. Though it remains a largely notional concept, AirSea Battle will depend on an expansive set of upgraded capabilities: a hardened and more dispersed network of bases and C4ISR systems; more and better submarine, anti-submarine and mine-warfare capabilities; and new, long range conventional strike systems, including bombers and anti-satellite weapons. Then, of course, there are the aircraft carriers and other major surface combatants, strike-fighter aircraft, and possibly even amphibious ships.
Photo Credit: US Navy
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Memo
Frank, I would like to ask, rptfecseully, that you participate in serious discussion instead of deliberately trying to ruin the discussion with comments that you fully know are inane and illogical.
mark chan
Who is downfalling? America and China rely on each other with the former relying more on the latter as the years go by. America will be making the gravest mistake in its entire history if it target China as an enemy. China cannot knock out America but can exhaust it.
Doom
China relies on US and the West money for its financial survival as simply its own economy cannot support itself and its overeliant on manufacturing for its own good. It has a huge problems with over 20+ million umeployed and probably
even more homeless. So it has much internal problems…Its economy is fabricated
growth figures and some economist are telling people to leave it alone. Its property market is doomed and foreign investment in China is a lost cause
as its centrally planned economy does not allow any foreign influence and investment as the country is still living in a psycotic commie paranoia.
It may have a ‘capitalist’ visage on the outside yet it rule seems to
point to the opposite.
Its military has not been in any external conflict since the Korean War.
The US has a global presence not seen in warfare since the Roman Empire. China
can try and lead the US into many different problems it creates like supporting
dictators round the world and we have to mop up. If China was to go agressive
in the Pacific it has few if any friends and will be handed a defeat like Imperial Japan did. Its spies are its only saving grace and its people are violently nationalistic and share nazi-like idology in Han China. China has to
learn to live with the West or it will be its D O W N F A L L.
Tim
Not quite right… The Chinese had a small border war in the late 60’s I believe, with the Soviet Union. The Soviets even queried the US about its stance if the they were to attack nuclear facilites deep in China’s mainland. What’s more, even the Roman Empire fell. Not that I think that will happen to the US, that would be disastrous for all their allies and the entire world.